Lots of fun in Fakarava

Hello All,
We made it down to the south pass on Fakarava Atoll yesterday afternoon. Delphine and I made the trip with out Tobias. My beloved crew member of 2 months decided to stay with the boat Infinity. He made some really good friends on the boat and with there mission of doing research of the Pacific Ocean and the many Atolls in the area, they offered him an opportunity that I could not, so Delphine and I will make it to Tahiti and I will look for someone there to replace him. We sailed the boat right down the middle of the atoll with up to 25 knots of wind. There was a channel of sorts to follow to get down here and I talked to other cruisers that did it and they said it was easy with no obstructions. It was a 30 mile run to get down here and it took us 5.5 hours so I was pleased with the time we made. We got anchored by Curious and were invited for a sundowner last night. A Canadian couple that was anchored by us were also invited. They are from the Vancouver area so we had lots to talk about.
This morning at 0300 I was awakened by the anchor chain grinding on a coral head. It was caught in the head so badly that with the wind waves and the squalls that were blowing through it was not letting the boat pitch. I was worried about it taking the anchor winch off the boat or parting the chain so I got Delphine up and started the engine so I could motor up on it and put another 20 feet of nylon line between the boat and the chain so it would soften the load more. About 0600 the wind shifted and the chain was freed. I went back to bed to try to start the morning over again. We were planning on doing a morning snorkel in the pass but the weather is to poor at the moment. We will see what happens this after noon. I am going to write a blog about an Atoll and how they were made and what its like to be inside of a Lagoon and the many hazards associated with navigating within one, so stay tuned.

PEACE